Nasdaq to launch bitcoin futures in 2019

Nasdaq has confirmed its plans to launch Bitcoin futures in H1 2019, but it remains subject to approval from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The stock exchange did not confirm whether Nasdaq’s Bitcoin futures contract will be cash-backed, or physically settled, namely if it will be with returns paid out in BTC rather than fiat currency.

Cash-settled Bitcoin futures contracts came to market on CBOE and CME Group on December 2017, however, the first physically-delivered Bitcoin futures are targeted for launch in January 2019 on Bakkt, which is the digital assets platform created by New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) operator, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

Nasdaq suggested in November 2017 that it would be launching BTC futures by mid-2018. They also planned that futures contract would be the first of a set of transparent, regulated and surveilled digital assets products to be launched as part of its partnership with US investment company VanEck.